The Calculating Machine of Blaise Pascal

The digital electronic computer PASCAL in Philips Computing Centre has been given this name in honour of the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal I), who in 1642, at the age of eighteen, designed a calculating machine at Rouen. His obj eet with this machine, which became known as the Pascaline, was to ease the burden on his father who, as a tax official, had a great deal of figure work to do. Although in the later years of his short life (Pascal died in 1662, almost exactly three hundred years ago) he was mainly concerned with other matters, he nevertheless had more than 50 models made of his machine 2), each being an improvement on the preceding ones. In 1645 he presented one to Chancellor Pierre Séguier, through whose good offices he obtained in 1649 a royal privilege on his invention; in 1647 he showed one to Descartes; in 1652 he finally arrived at a form that satisfied him; he sent one machine to Queen Christin a of Sweden, and another he demonstrated personally to a distinguished gathering in Paris successfully, to judge from the poetic effusion of a contemporary 3).